terça-feira, setembro 30, 2008

Indecent Exposure - Oi! from the 80's

Indecent Exposure were formed in late 1981, with Britain in a deep dire recession, 3 million on the dole and then Southall, Brixton & Toxteth along with many other towns & cities kicking off, it was now time for IndEx to make their mark through their own brand of Oi! Music!!

After the Riots of 81, Oi! Music was deemed dead by almost everyone, to the press, the music industry and all record companies. Oi! Was now a dirty word and only the hard core lovers of this type of music, the kids on the streets were willing to still come and support the bands. The hardest years were to follow as most promoters and venues refused to book Oi! Bands for fear of trouble & police harassment which always seemed to follow Oi music down in the London & South East area and this went on for some years after.

The Falklands War happened in 1982 and Steve tried to join the Para’s to go fight for his country but was turned down because of his street fighting criminal record, enough was enough and Steve born and bred on the mean violent streets of Bethnal Green, East London where Oi! Music had first began wanted his voice heard and set out to make it happen meeting up with what would turn out to be the other members of the band through gigs and spending their Sundays hanging out at the Last Resort Skinhead shop in Petticoat Lane, East London.

With IndEx's unique hard in your face brand of Oi!, these young patriotic street scrapping kids sang about their own life experiences and the crap that was going around them. The site of watching their once great country slip violently down the toilet under the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher was gut wrenching.

The 1st line up consisted of Steve-Vocals, Big Tom-Guitar, Colin Wright-Bass & Sedge on Drums, this was to be short lived as before they had even played a single gig Colin Wright moved away leaving IndEx with a lot of hard work and almost a year wasted. In came Punky Bacon and so this ended up being the one and only line up to make it to the music stage with the exception of Paul Swain of The 4-Skins guesting in a few gig appearances and also guesting with them in the recording studio.

In 1982 their first single was released and what turned out to be a hard hitting Oi! Anthem reflecting what had happened the year before in 81. The double A side single featured “Riots" & "A Matter of Time” re-releasing it again at the end of 1983.

Their first long awaited album “Reveal All” wasn’t released until 1984, this was Classic Oi! Music at it’s rawest with tracks like “A Way of Life” & “Bank Holiday” to harder hitting songs like “I won’t Let My Country Die” & “Save the Nation”.

IndEx’s second Album “No Looking Back” was released in 1985, this album had an even stronger Oi! feel to it with tracks like “Authority” “Stick Together” & the heavy hitting track “Mad Dog”.

By 1985 / 86 the Oi! Scene had sunk probably to its lowest, extremists from the left & the right were infiltrating the Oi! scene, Index’s Singer Steve had gotten into a big argument just before doing a gig in Tufnell Park, North London after telling some political skins to f*ck off out of it. All IndEx wanted to do was play Oi! Music, later on that night he was to pay for standing up to these mugs as one of the spineless f*cks threw a bottle whilst IndEx were playing their set splitting Steve’s head wide open, IndEx in true hardcore Oi! fashion continued to finish their set then jumped into the large crowd to find the scumbag culprits, but in true low life fashion these cockroaches had crawed back under the stone from which they had came from, later that night Steve went to hospital where he got 12 stitches put in his head, it was to be the last gig IndEx ever played in London.

After this IndEx along with other top bands vowed to help organise gigs so as all political toe rags left or right would never get a foothold on their Oi! Music again.

IndEx have played all over Britain & Europe playing with varied and diverse types of Punk, Oi! & Ska bands such as :The Business, The Bohse Onkelz, Bad Manners, Section 5, UK Subs, Condemned 84, Desmond Decker, Vicious Rumors, King Kurt to name but a few.

Today, Indecent Exposure can claim to be one of the only Old Oi! Bands that will be playing with their original line up. This old 80’s Oi! Band is a hard hitting no mess, no fuss but a truly pure impacting experience, If you haven’t seen them play live then make sure you get along to one of their tour gigs later in the year and experience what it was like when Old Oi! was alive and kicking the shit out of anything that got in its way!!

This is truly going to be an awesome reunion after over 20 years away and they're doing it for the fans and the love of Oi! Music and f*ck all to do with politics or anything else for that matter, anyone who thinks otherwise can f*ck right off!!